my first guest tonight is the beloved
astrophysicist author and director of
the Hayden Planetarium at the American
Museum and now in history please welcome
my friend Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Neal beautiful I love the Stars for you
my friend Aubrey what you've done with
the place
thank you very much now you know I'm the
old gig over on the other network you
were the guest I had more than any other
guest really yeah you were that you know
you know that gave that I lived nearby
so I was a cheap date
could it be we moved the studio
someplace close to you so we could be
near you Neal I just found out the
you're also the you are holding a vast
lead on anybody else on this show you've
been on nine times do you who number 2
is no John Oliver that's a six six yeah
okay anyway so thank you very much but
the universe is vaster than anything
else in the universe we got a lot of
insight here I got there's a lot in the
universe to talk about okay anything
else in the universe of all Happy New
Year thank you happy New Year to you now
is the new year have any particular
astronomical significance
no no why not no not not we've gone
around the Sun right we've gone around
the Sun once yeah but the place weird
that we returned to there's nothing
special or interesting about it's a
completely arbitrary spot on the
calendar that we have chosen to
celebrate the new year plus it's I think
it's a little weird that we all
celebrate that instant that the ball
drops and then one hour later they
celebrate exactly the same thing and
then the hour later an hour later to do
that 24 times around the world I know
how clocks working number no one weird
no the world is not celebrating the same
moment it's kind of it's odd to me as an
astrophysicist but that's fine it's
culture that's how we do it
could you be more Neil deGrasse Tyson
right you live just saw do you love all
right what what are what is worth
celebrating if it's not New Year's well
that's every other holiday in the year
has some astronomical basis the Chinese
New Year the Jewish New Year Ramadan
Easter Lent Toyota thaw
oh well all of all of it there's
something go you know Saturnalia every
all Christmas Saturday it's it's back in
the winter yeah where you want to the
Sun is getting lower and lower in the
sky each day worried that maybe it'll
never come back Oh and so this Saturn
getting higher in the sky
well no but Saturn is the god that that
you pray to and celebrate and it's a
Saturnalia is where everything flips so
the master serves the slave the slave
gives commands it's an interesting Roman
tradition that is long gone all right
but but I'm just saying it's in that
time of the year where the Sun is
basically reborn
so it's solstice celebrations and
Christmas was put there to be a good
place to sort of bring in all the pagan
worshippers who were already celebrating
that time of year it worked
yeah it worked yeah oh yeah we won
[Laughter]
what's got you excited for 2018 what's
got you excited but just to be clear
okay not only one there you won the
calendar race to the worlds calendars
the Gregorian calendar after Pope
Gregory put that into place in 1582
because the previous Julian calendar was
messing up in the year it was off by
like ten days okay who's off by 10 days
yeah and the Pope said we got to fix
this so they hope fixed up well pub is
Jesuit scientists yeah that Jesuit
priests were like acted the academic
order of the Catholic you're Catholic
you should be teaching this okay
I'm aware of my religion okay so there's
a Vatican Observatory to this day that
in at the time before telescopes were
invented the these Jesuit priests were
put into the service of figuring out why
the calendar was shifting in the year
what am i correct in saying that it was
a Catholic priest who first proposed the
idea of the Big Bang
yes George Lemaitre that's the Big Bang
itself using Einstein's equations
Einstein could have done it but it was
enough he did enough yes lay down the
equations all the people calculated with
his equations and he deduces that the
history of the universe must have
started with a bang Wow okay
so going to 2018 so Catholics have been
in there and multiple you don't have to
tell me okay I'm team RC now team Roman
Catholic yes okay
now here walking footnote Neil deGrasse
Tyson I didn't think you brought people
with you on that comment so I'm just
hoping it you were with me who was not
with him I feel betrayed
alright so 2018 let me get to the second
question is one interview in 2018 what
mystery are you most interested in
science cracking or what what do you
think we are likely to learn this year
that we're close to to figure it out in
my field the good thing about it is
generally we make discoveries when a
mission is launched and okay so we so we
know when to begin to expect discuss
what's the big mission that's reaching
as well their missions are in progress
now to try to understand dark matter and
dark energy okay more than we currently
do we know it's there but it's a
complete mystery we don't understand the
origin of 85% of all the gravity of the
universe it's not black holes comets
started planets it's none of the above
so the math says there should be more
there but we can't see it right so it's
actually missing gravity rather than
missing mass I'm sorry it's it's it's
gravity with no known source which is
what I say dark gravity it's dark
gradually dark gravity Wow
really what it is then then there's some
mysterious pressure in the vacuum of
space what do you mean which we call
dark energy but we should just call this
Fred and Wilma I joke about this cuz we
don't know what they are so lame
don't give it a name that makes you
think we know what it is because we
don't actually know what it is but it's
there we measure it a mysterious
pressure in the vacuum of space that is
forcing the universe to accelerate in
its expansion and I've written about
this because I lose sleep over this fact
okay can I share this other one I don't
know I could stop you I don't be blamed
if you cannot get to sleep tonight no
I'll be okay okay
all right so this dark energy in the
future will render the universe so large
having accelerated so significantly that
all the galaxies of the night sky will
have accelerated beyond our horizon well
and and all the galaxies are the source
of our knowledge of cosmology of the Big
Bang everything we know about the
history of the universe comes to us from
these galaxies if they accelerate beyond
our horizon the next generation of
cosmic explorers will only have the
stars of the Milky Way to think about
and I so there'd isn't it there would
have been an entire chapter of the
universe ripped from their view and they
will be trying to contemplate an
understanding of the universe without a
significant part of what its past was
and so I'd lose sleep wondering today
was there some previous chapter ripped
from the universe itself and here we are
and here we are you know touching the
elephant trunk not knowing that in fact
there's an elephant standing there or
maybe there's the shadow of the elephant
and the elephant has been moved we don't
know what we don't know and this leaves
me awake at night I lose sleep over that
I'm not gonna get a wink hold off we
gotta take a break we'll be right back
neil degrasse tyson everybody wow what a
cliffhanger what's gonna happen in the
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